No. 25 UNLV football heading into bye in control of playoff destiny

How did the UNLV football team commemorate its entry into the Top 25 rankings for the first time in the 56-year history of the program? 

For such a special occasion, surely a celebration would be in order. Something with confetti. A dance floor. A pizza party, at the very least.

Well…

“We had a team meeting this morning,” head coach Barry Odom reported during his weekly press conference on Monday. “I addressed [the rankings] and said this is where we are, what we’ve done up to this point. If you want to keep it, go earn it.”

So, no music or fireworks show. But Odom did include a visual aide.

“I also threw up a little slide of rat poison, because all those great things that you hear and you read, it softens your character.”

Okay, then.

It’s hard to imagine a better indicator of Odom’s coaching style. Serious. No frills. A Top 25 ranking? No big deal.

Since being hired in December of 2023, his plain-spoken, no-nonsense demeanor and goal-oriented approach have helped build UNLV from a perennial laughingstock to being ranked No. 25 in the nation. That includes Friday’s game at Kansas, which saw the Scarlet and Gray overcome a late deficit to win, 23-20, to improve to 3-0 on the year.

Odom’s way is working, so it’s business as usual this week at the Fertitta Football Complex, where UNLV will have a bye before hosting Fresno State on Sept. 28. Odom laid out the plan for the week, a slate consisting of practices on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, the weight room on Friday, and team meetings sprinkled throughout. 

The biggest indicator that the team has completely bought into Odom’s vision is the way the players are handling the bye week.

Just a few days after recording a fourth-down sack to end Kansas’ final drive, senior defensive end Antonio Doyle had put the rankings in the rearview and set his sights on the road ahead.

“Everybody is excited,” Doyle said. “But we all understand that we have a lot of work to do. I feel like we’re more excited for practice than the rankings, honestly, because we know that’s where everything starts. Especially for this program.”

If that sounds like it came straight from Odom’s media playbook, quarterback Matthew Sluka sounded even more uncannily like his coach when asked about being No. 25.

“It’s an accomplishment, but I don’t think it really means much yet,” Sluka said. “It’s only Week 3. We’ve got a lot of good teams to play coming up. It’s an acknowledgement of our hard work so far, but it doesn’t really mean much yet. We’ve got to keep going and keep rowing until the season is over.”

Sluka alluded to the biggest reason why the team doesn’t consider the Top 25 polls such a big deal: the open Group of 5 playoff spot. That is the overarching goal, and with a quarter of the schedule in the books, UNLV’s playoff résumé is as good or better than any other contender’s.

If the rankings are any indication, UNLV controls its own destiny. Some projections already have the Scarlet and Gray as the frontrunner for the G5 playoff berth, but even if they’re currently on the outside looking in, they’ll have straightforward opportunities to leapfrog the teams ahead of them.

In this week’s AP Top 25 poll, UNLV ranked an unofficial 29th and placed fifth among Group of 5 teams; Northern Illinois was No. 23, while the three teams directly ahead of UNLV were Memphis, Boise State and Syracuse. Odom and his squad will face Syracuse and Boise State in head to head matchups on Oct. 4 and Oct. 25, respectively, so as long as the Scarlet and Gray keep winning, they will have a strong claim to the playoff spot.

So that’s why Odom is preaching to stay the course this week. Being ranked for the first time is great, but the bigger goal has yet to be achieved.

“I’m excited for our team,” Odom said. “I did not know it was the first time in the history of the school to be ranked in any of those polls, so I think we’ve created some momentum for our team and our program. I think we’ve earned a little bit of respect. We also know that we’ve got to go earn it next week, and the next week, and the next week on down. We’ve got a lot of season left. There’s 10 weeks left, nine games of regular season, so we’ve got a lot of work yet to do.”

Mike Grimala can be reached at 702-948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Mike on Twitter at twitter.com/mikegrimala.